2001 Spring ConfChem: Lecture Demonstrations in Chemistry on the World Wide Web

This conference will explore opportunities to illustrate chemical principles and processes using still images, audio, and video over the world wide web. Presenters will share typical classroom experiences with the members of CONFCHEM and will offer participants an opportunity to discuss what has been presented. Participants will be invited to identify problems confronted by all chemical demonstrators both connected with the exemplification of principles and the constraints of the "little screen". We shall welcome presenters who have the entire range of equipment available to them, from finished productions carried out in fully equipped distance education studios to offerings produced in one-shot, single-camera setups so as to give us the opportunity to witness the talents of the naturally gifted demonstrators among us.

Paper 1. Animations and Simulations as Lecture Demonstrations

Gary L. BertrandDepartment of Chemistry, University of Missouri-RollaRolla, MO 65409-0010

Conference Articles

Brief Description: For several years, I have been working with animated GIFs in Web delivered Minilessons that can be used either in the classroom or as out of-class assignments. These involve a trade-off in smoothness of operation for relatively rapid downloading. For the past year, I have been using JavaScript for the development of interactive tutorials and simulated experiments. Some of these will be discussed in terms of their use in and out of the classroom.

Demonstrations can be used to capture students attention, illustrate some abstract point or topic in chemistry, and to give students some point of experience on which to build their understanding of the happening of chemistry. Unfortunately many wonderful demonstrations are either too risky to perform in a classroom setting or sometimes they simply do not work. In the latter case, the outcome is usually that the students are disappointed and the failed demonstration may actually take away from the class presentation instead of enhancing it. One solution to both of these situations is the use of previously recorded, online demonstrations.

Paul Groves
South Pasadena High School
1401 Fremont Avenue
South Pasadena, CA 91030pgroves@aol.com

Abstract:

Two lecture experiments allow me to show the phenomenon of paramagnetism and the effect of nitric acid on copper. Online versions of these lecture experiments allow students to review and revisit the phenomena. This is especially valuable with the copper and nitric acid reaction because as the school year progresses, the students understand more and more about the phenomena.

Good teaching is part preparation and part theater --- you are "ON" every day you walk into that class room from the clothes you wear to the content you present. I have ten demos with a bit of theater located on the WebCT site.

Chemistry is a topic of study that frequently uses demonstrations to provide a tangible illustration of a concept being explored in a lecture course, or to demonstrate proper experimental procedure for a laboratory exercise. Instructors at large Universities often face the difficult challenge of providing these first person experiences to several hundred students in a lecture auditorium, many of whom are seated at such a distance that the overall impact of the demonstration is lost. We have been using Flash Animation, Streaming Audio, and Streaming Video to place demonstrations on the Internet using the Synchronized Multimedia Interactive Language (SMIL) file format. The SMIL format provides the opportunity to present the demonstration and an explanation of the concept being illustrated. SMIL is also an interactive file format providing an opportunity to actively involve the student in the demonstration. In this paper, we will present several illustrations of how we use these Internet resources in our Quantitative Analysis courses.